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Stefan Molyneux - Bryan Caplan - Understanding Economics

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Here's Stefan Molyneux interview of the economist Bryan Caplan...



2:45

Caplan: It almost seems like if you don't know what you're talking about there's a view that you naturally tend to like.

This might explain why so many people who don't understand economics use the very popular "taxes are theft" argument. People who do understand economics, for example...the anarcho-capitalist economists Peter Boettke and David Friedman, focus instead on consequentialist arguments. Here's David Friedman's perspective on moral (deontological..."taxes are theft") arguments versus economic (consequentialist) arguments:

The short version...

I generally prefer consequentialist arguments. I think I understand economics better than I understand moral philosophy, and possibly better than anyone understands moral philosophy. - David Friedman

The long version...

I guess the first thing is that it offers arguments which don't require that people already share your religion...using the term "religion" broadly. That as far as I can tell, nobody, whether deontological libertarians or communists or anyone else really has a really convincing argument to show that their moral views are right. Many people believe that they do but I don't think that they do. Ayn Rand, at least, presented an argument. Ayn Rand claimed in effect to have defeated David Hume's is ought problem. Hume argued that you couldn't derive on ought from an is. I have a discussion up on my webpage of the holes in Rand's arguments. As far as I can tell she simply didn't do it. I don't think it can be done as far as I know. So in order to persuade people by a natural rights argument there has to be some reason why they believe in natural rights to start with because you don't have any good arguments to show that they ought to believe it. Whereas my argument...it claims to show...it hopefully shows...that my system would be better in terms of the value that almost everybody already has. So I'm really saying if you regard natural rights to be really important...well look...in my system rights will rarely be violated. If you regard people being happy and being healthy and living long lives...look in my society people will be in effect wealthier than in societies with governments, therefore you should like the results of those things...and so forth and so on. So I think that I have an argument which does depend on convincing people that economics is relevant to human behavior but doesn't depend on convincing them of your particular right and wrong beliefs.

Now the further problem with at least the versions of deontological libertarianism that I'm familiar with is that in the form in which people often state them they lead to conclusions that nobody believes. I spend a chapter in Machinery and Freedom going through that and if you really believe that the solution to polution is to say that nobody is allowed to pollute anybody else's property without their permission well you can't really exhale because carbon dioxide is a pollutant and you can be sure that some of the carbon dioxide you exhale will go onto somebody else's property. And similiarly you can't turn on a lightbulb because your photons will trespass. And once you start trying to make a more sophisticated version of the theory which deals with those...pretty quickly you start running into the kind of arguments that you run into in the consequentialist defense of libertarianism. - David Friedman, Legal Systems Without Government

3:50

Caplan: Right, although I would say that a lot of people say, "Well, that's not true at all, look at the stock market. There it's just a whole lot of people most of them don't know what's going on and we do rely on it". But there is a big difference between a stocket market or betting market generally. So in democracy everyone gets the exactly same say no matter how little how much they know. Whereas in a stock market or a betting market most people don't participate. The people who participate are the ones who actually do have some reason to think they know something and people that know the most generally are the biggest [buyers/players?] so there is a very big difference.

Allowing taxpayers to directly allocate their taxes...aka tax choice...would help solve this problem because it would result in a taxpayer division of labor. Taxpayers would determine the distribution of public funds and voters would be able to vote on everything else. For a specific example of how this would work see my post on Universal Suffrage, Pragmatarianism and the War on Drugs.

26:00 - People are strongly attached to their beliefs

Caplan: People get strong emotional attachments to their beliefs. And here's the thing, if you are open to evidence and logic, your beliefs are always on the chopping block. Some new evidence could come along, some new argument could come along if you are open to logic and evidence then you have lost this belief that makes a big difference in how you feel about yourself. Whereas, if you are just a stubborn dogmatist...

For more on this concept see...Banned From Bleeding Heart Libertarian.

37:00 - They discuss education. The signalling model. Education isn't about what you learn...it's not about the skills you gain...it's about demonstrating your ability to jump through hoops.

41:00 - See the Opportunity Costs of War

If you're interested in learning more about economics...check out...
1. this debate on Youtube between Bryan Caplan and Peter Boettke.
2. this post on partial knowledge and opportunity costs.
 
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